Have you grown beyond simply keeping a flock of chickens for great eggs for breakfast? Have you started incubating eggs and breeding your own chickens or other types of poultry? Have you considered actually organizing a true breeding program on your farm or homestead? Have you dreamed about creating a business around breeding birds?

Breeding and selling poultry is truly an up and coming business idea. Chickens and poultry have been gaining popularity for the past couple years and people’s renewed interest and excitement in poultry is not going to fade in the near future.

Let’s assume you have decided on a breed you love and do well with. You’ve figured out the timing and other aspects to successfully hatching as many chicks as you want when you want them. Or you have solid sets of breeding birds producing successful hatching eggs. You’re all set to put yourself and your hatching eggs or chicks or even adult birds out there for selling to the public.

As nice as it is to sell some birds to your neighbors or family members, you cannot overlook online selling options especially if you really want to grow. For rare and expensive breeds, you will need the wider audience that the internet provides. Online selling options are also usually very inexpensive and sometimes free, so you can skip big marketing expenses.

To start selling online, prep first by taking some great photos of your birds. Check out our blog on How to Take Great Photos of Birds.

Next, write up a short, couple sentence long biography about yourself, your farm, and your breeding program.

Then write up clear descriptions of the products you want to sell.

Finally, start exploring the various online options to find a good fit for your products…

Auction Style Websites are very popular with poultry buyers. EBay is a proven and great way to sell anything and poultry is no exception. . If you have a rare breed or species, a Poultry-Specific auction site might be more successful. EggBid and RareBreedAuctions are fun options to explore. With all these types of auction sites, there is a bit of a lack of a personal touch. It is particularly important to sell with integrity and clarity so as to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.

If the auction sites aren’t for you, consider selling your birds on a site like Backyardchickens in their Buy, Sell, Trade section. You connect with people and hold a buying/selling relationship. Craigslist is another popular classified site where there are many poultry transactions.

For more traditional advertising, you can also add your farm to the Directory of Hatcheries and Poultry Breeders on Mother Earth News for free where you may get lots of exposure. Customers can email you or get directed to your website. There are also options for low-cost ads on popular poultry sites such as the Breeder’s Directory on Backyard Poultry Magazine.

Also, consider checking in with your local Cooperative Extension – they may be able to help you sell through email blasts.

Join some Online Groups, such as social media groups or email groups. Through these groups, you can often connect with people and find buyers of poultry many of which could be local. Often local online groups will organize in-person meet ups or tailgate sales.

If you are really serious about breeding and selling poultry, consider starting your own website. You can set up a professional looking website for almost free.

Another exciting option is to look into larger companies that are looking for good breeders of various types of poultry. This is especially good for people who don’t really like to be salespeople. You work with the company doing the selling and let the company with their professional customer service people deal with the customers. You will need to be very organized and able to give specific info as to exact number of birds available for shipping on exact dates. Check out our Sell on Purely Poultry page for info and steps on how to become one of our vendors.

What are you getting yourself into? You know you want to be self-sufficient and raise birds for either nice fresh eggs or your own meat or both. You’ve researched the basics for their care. But what are the biggest challenges that people experience in today’s world while trying to raise a healthy flock of chickens?

Predators are probably the most dramatic issue. There’s nothing worse than discovering that some animal has gotten into your coop or yard and killed your birds. Building strong and safe coops and locking your birds up every night without fail can thwart a lot of losses by predators. Fencing can also help, especially against neighbors’ dogs. Some dogs are fine with chickens, but others can wreak havoc in your flock in minutes. Hawks and other large birds of prey can be a big issue during the day and fences won’t make much of a difference. Foxes are also daytime predators that can climb or dig under a fence in minutes. Having a 3-part system for raising your birds can help a lot. A 3-part system will include, first, an interior coop for nighttime. Then a small outdoor but covered and super-fenced in paddock right outside our coop. And finally a perimeter fence around the property your birds free range and forage on. By having two outdoor options, you can let your birds free range when it is safe, but if you have a hungry den of foxes hanging around in April, you can keep your birds in the more secure paddock.
Diseases and parasites are another challenge that all chicken owners will be faced with at some point. Normal good husbandry practices can prevent a lot of these types of issues. Keep your coops dry and clean. Don’t over-crowd. Be careful when adding new birds. And if you still do end up with diseases or parasites, there are many very effective products now available to poultry owners as well as organic and natural options.

One of the biggest concerns I hear about a lot is the worry that you won’t be able to go on a vacation or long weekend away if you have chickens. Well, that can be tricky! Besides the obvious food and water needs, chickens need to be locked away securely each night and then let out each morning. Over the past couple years though, chickens have become very popular, and I find that people like to get a taste of chicken ownership. Ask a trustworthy and dependable person to come by your place twice a day and take care of your birds. Let him/her collect and keep the eggs. There are also farm sitters available in many areas. Although having a person regularly check in is safest, there are automatic options that can not only help out for vacations, but can also make your life easier in general. There are automatic waterers as well as
automatic door openers that operate on timers or according to the light.

Lastly, one of the biggest challenges is feed cost, and there is not much we can do about that! People trying to feed a certified organic diet or a GMO-free diet face even bigger cost challenges. A couple years ago, feed costs skyrocketed across the country, and backyard flock owners felt it more than most people. Don’t get chickens as a way to cut supermarket costs. Get chickens because you love the self-sufficient lifestyle, you want super fresh, super-healthy eggs and meat (much better than supermarket eggs), you enjoy watching and being with your birds, etc. These reasons add a lot more to your life than saving some money.